Many companies are increasing their focus on AI as they incorporate machine learning and cognitive technologies into their current offerings. Industries ranging from pharmaceutical, finance, healthcare, automotive, retail, and so many others are all trying to deploy and scale enterprise AI systems while reducing their risk. Going to online or in person events can be a great way to explore a wide range of technologies and meet experts in a short amount of time. But there are so many AI events out there right now. How do you know which event is right for you? And how do you make sure it delivers the value you're looking for?

With so much interest in AI, there's no lack of AI related events, yet it can be overwhelming in the sea of options. To gain the most value, it’s important to understand who the event is marketed to.. is it geared towards executives, or a more technical audience? Is it focused on a certain vertical or industry? How many days is the event? How long has the event been around? Who supports it?

An upcoming event of increasing interest is AI World

One AI focused event that continues to provide a spectrum of value is AI World. Business and technology executives who want to learn about innovative implementations of AI in the enterprise through case studies and peer networking continue to find value in attending this international conference series. Companies are always looking to build a competitive advantage, see how to drive new business models and opportunities, reduce operational costs, and accelerate innovation efforts.

Companies regularly struggle with finding appropriate and applicable use cases around AI and ML projects. It’s one thing to talk about implementing AI, but it’s another thing to make sure you implement it on the right projects where you’ll see actual business impact and positive ROI. Companies want to know how others are doing it, best practices, and where to start.

At AI World, innovators in the industry present on relevant topics and provide real-world use cases to help attendees address challenges. At the upcoming AI World event in Boston on Dec 3-5, 2018, there will be sessions on enterprise AI adoption, including one on how Wells Fargo uses AI to transform the customer experience, operations, and risk management.

If you’re interested in learning how to take your big data and transform it with AI, there's a panel about bringing big data benefits to small data operations. Not all companies have massive budgets to hire scarce data science resources. This panel provides examples of how businesses of all sizes can effectively gather, analyze, and make enterprise data actionable. Likewise, those interested in the intersection of AI and real time IOT will find value in a panel about transforming the manufacturing industry and how AI and IoT devices can help with production quality, cost, and efficiency problems in the manufacturing environment.

Other real-world examples include sessions on AI in the healthcare industry providing insight into how organizations are leveraging AI to drive operational intelligence. Other sessions explain how AI is impacting the pharmaceutical industry, with a presentation from GlaxoSmithKline illustrating how to integrate AI workflows in drug discovery.

Additional sessions include details on the current state of AI technology, some of the challenges, and its future. One highlight at the event is a panel discussing issues around bias in data, why explainable AI (XAI) is needed, and why organizations, especially in heavily regulated industries, are reluctant to embrace intelligent systems without some explanation of how the machine output was determined.

You get out what you put in..

Regardless of the AI event you're attending, the most important thing to note is that you always get out of events what you put into them. Get there early to network. Go to the sessions that you’ll find the most valuable. Walk the expo floor. Talk to people you think might be potential partners or customers. If you’re investing your time and money in the event make sure to get the most you can from it.